Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland

THE UMMA t 155
ment resolutions and decrees when these “contravene Islamic laws
and regulations.”
The clearest statement of principle is contained in Article 2 of
the Constitution:
1. There is only one God . . . who by right is ruler and lawgiver,
and man must submit to his command.
2. Divine revelation has a role to play in the promulgation of the
laws.
3. The resurrection plays an essential role in the process of man’s
development vis-à-vis God.
4. God’s justice is inherent in his creation and his law.
5. The Imamate will provide the leadership and will play a fundamental
role in the progress of the Islamic revolution.
6. Man is endowed with nobility and elevated dignity; his freedom
entails responsibility before God,
The governance of the Imami Shiite clerics is guaranteed by the
most striking feature of the structure of the new Islamic Republic:
side by side with the traditional republican institutions of elected
executive, legislative, and judicial officials runs a parallel line of
clerics, most of them appointed, who exercise a quite literal guardianship
over the acts and enactments of their elected counterparts.
Thus the president is “shadowed” by a religious leader, the parliament
by a Council of Guardians, and the civil courts by religious
ones. The purpose of this second, shadow government in the Islamic
Republic of Iran is perfectly clear. As Article 2 of the Constitution
expresses it, by means of “continual ijtihad [“interpretation”]
exercised by qualified jurists on the basis of the Quran and
the sunna of those who are infallible [that is, the Imams] (God’s
peace be upon them all), . . . justice as well as political, economic,
social, and cultural independence and national solidarity will be
achieved.” That power is expressed chiefly in the appointed clerics’
right to void any acts or legislation that are deemed contrary to the
sharia.